


Seeing is believing

by gyunikum



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark, Light Fantasy, Lovecraftian, M/M, Mild Gore, Mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 15:25:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8451688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyunikum/pseuds/gyunikum
Summary: One day Taekwoon mysteriously disappears, and it's up to Sanghyuk to find him. With the help of some friends, Sanghyuk delves too deep into something he should not have, and he realizes that there is something inside the shadows that he hasn't seen before. But to see in the darkness in order to find Taekwoon, Sanghyuk will have to sacrifice his sight-- and then some more.





	

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: leohyuk, "i'll follow you into the dark"
> 
> inspired by H.P Lovecraft's stuff.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel. No gates of blinding white clouds or shadowy volcanoes spitting geysers of fire.

There was nothing, but a sense of emptiness, of void—of the lack of pure and raw existence that clawed at Sanghyuk’s being, wrapped itself around his core in a way that he felt _less_ when more of it came. Like the hole in the riddle of _what keeps growing when you take more of it away_.

He stood there, at the end of the tunnel, and stared into the abyss— if it was an abyss at all. The hole in the riddle just kept growing, growing, invisible, weightless, nothing.

He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t see the nothingness that was supposed to be there.

The abyss didn’t stare back into Sanghyuk, because— it wasn’t an abyss.

It wasn’t darkness, it wasn’t the lack of light. It was just how his mind tried to fill in the void that the lack of everything revealed to him— he used synonyms and metaphors to familiarize himself with this unknown that he didn’t know he felt comfortable in, or was scared by it.

It was something— wasn’t it? It _had_ to be something.

There couldn’t be nothing.

Sanghyuk opened his eyes, and his sight returned to him.

Hakyeon’s face was eager as he stared at Sanghyuk.

“So?” Hakyeon raised an eyebrow. “Did you find anything?”

Sanghyuk shook his head, one time was more than enough, and Hakyeon huffed out his frustration. He rubbed his face tiredly.

“I’m out of ideas,” he grunted in what seemed like complete exhaustion. “I wish I could see anything there— I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m sorry,” he apologized. Sanghyuk shrugged— he was already thankful for Hakyeon’s help. At least now he knew that he was one step closer to running out of any possible ways, if there was any left at all.

“It’s okay,” Sanghyuk reassured the other. To his surprise, Hakyeon stood up suddenly. He paced the room, stepping over objects that didn’t have a place on the overcrowded shelves.

“No. It’s not okay,” Hakyeon shook his head, mumbling to himself. With his chin pinched between two fingers, he wandered around the room, wondering, musing, thinking, the gears of his brain turning so loudly, Sanghyuk could almost hear them work their way through another thought, another theory.

Sanghyuk played with his fingers as he sat on the couch, trying to keep his thoughts at bay— he had to shake his head from time to time when his mind wandered back into the darkness, too deep into the memory of the tunnel. He knew he shouldn’t have gone back, without Hakyeon’s guidance, the exit wasn’t so clear, it wasn’t so easy to leave without Hakyeon’s hand leading him through the maze.

But Sanghyuk wasn’t worried— it was just a memory of the real thing. It couldn’t reach him. Not anymore, not until Hakyeon opened another rift for him to step into.

“He has to be there,” Hakyeon continued. “He couldn’t have just— disappeared, it’s not how the nature of it works,” he explained, more to himself. Sanghyuk knew already.

The balance had to be maintained, and the nature of everything was its strictest enforcer— for it to allow someone to disappear without a trace, for an action to happen without a reaction, it was impossible.

“We need to dig deeper,” Hakyeon stated, his tone and stature radiating confidence. He was going through his bookshelf, checking the spines of each volumes with his finger, until he suddenly stopped, and looked at Sanghyuk with a serious face. “We will find Taekwoon.”

 

They hadn’t been into occult things per se— Taekwoon had even tried to shield Sanghyuk from most of the things that came with it, but dating someone who could hunt down the creatures that crawled out of the darkest pits of the Netherworld, a new world within the one Sanghyuk had grown up in opened up, and from then on, Sanghyuk couldn’t just go back to his normal life.

A new world that encased the one he had grown up in— the night sky was the veil of Netherworld that had been wrapped around their little world, and the flickering stars were the holes punctured into it for the Zenith’s light to reach the mortals— or so according to the old tales Taekwoon had sometimes entertained Sanghyuk with on quiet nights, when their reality was curled around their necks too tight for the food or alcohol to go down, and made their skin hard for their kisses and touches to be felt.

On those nights, Taekwoon talked about things he’d read in ancient libraries and monasteries around the world, and Sanghyuk listened, absorbing it like a sponge— absorbing a part of Taekwoon so he could always keep the other around even when Sanghyuk had to go to class or to his part-time job.

He didn’t mind it at all— he didn’t mind that he lost contact with his old friends that were already starting their own big lives in their little worlds, he didn’t mind that he gradually stopped going to his classes – English major was a lot less interesting than hunting down shadowy figures that Taekwoon forced to crawl back into the Netherworld – and to the dingy little corner store where he worked.

He had met Hakyeon, an Observer, and self-proclaimed scholar of the balance who made sure everything was working fine when things would get mixed up from time to time, and was also Taekwoon’s sort-of employer who paid him right after every job in too-pristine banknotes— Sanghyuk never wondered where that money came from, or what kind of system there was that employed the likes of Taekwoon; the money would be soon gone for bills, the rent, and a fancy dinner or a trip outside the city from time to time. He had also met Wonshik, a Seeker, who helped Hakyeon find the oddities in the city with the third eye on his forehead, a gift from his shaman father. They were interesting people who broadened Sanghyuk’s vision, filled him with knowledge, and became great friends Sanghyuk could always rely on.

Sanghyuk had taken great interest in this new world, and despite the dangers it imposed on him, as an outsider, he even helped Taekwoon in his job—

But then one day, Taekwoon had disappeared without a trace— both physical and metaphysical. There were no footprints of Taekwoon in the muddy course of action and reaction. Even Sanghyuk could feel it in his core as the balance shifted— that’s how he knew that whatever happened to Taekwoon was dangerous and something that shouldn’t have happened.

At first, he sought Wonshik’s help, hoping that his third eye would be able to find Taekwoon’s location no matter where he might be, and things were going well until they realized that Taekwoon had probably gone to the Netherworld not on his own free will, because that moment something happened and Wonshik screamed out in pain as his eye began to bleed black— the same black that birthed the monsters Taekwoon hunted.

 

“I—” Hakyeon started quietly. They were hunched over ancient tomes and spell books they had been scouring over for the better part of the night, and through the small window in the corner, the sky was beginning to turn brighter as dawn crept closer.

Sanghyuk opened his eyes from where he was resting them— the intricate, curved words of faded ink had begun to melt into each other.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to resort to this but—” he continued, and rubbed his face tiredly. “I think there’s one more thing left to try—”

“What is it?” Sanghyuk perked up, straightening his back. His body was screaming at him to go to sleep already, but more than that, his mind was completely exhausted. The little detours to the foyer of the Netherworld, even through Hakyeon’s proxy, were mind-numbing for someone like Sanghyuk, and it was only thanks to Hakyeon’s unwillingness that Sanghyuk wasn’t back there for another try.

He felt like he was after a long, sleepless study-session in the library— maybe there was even a headache settling in the base of his skull.

“After what happened to Wonshik,” Hakyeon mumbled as he tore a page out of his notebook where he had been writing into, “we visited a specialist— an eye specialist.”

“An eye specialist?” Sanghyuk echoed curiously. He looked at the piece of paper and the name card that Hakyeon slipped towards him on the clattered table. The card was black, velvety, with a minimalist, golden design of an eye on the back.

_Lee &Lee ophthalmologist. Seeing is believing._

On the torn page was an address in Hakyeon’s handwriting.

“I’d go there with you, but I have to pick up Wonshik at the temple. I’m sorry.”

“It’s— okay,” Sanghyuk nodded, and placed a hand on Hakyeon’s shoulder, squeezing it in reassurance. “You’ve helped me a lot.”

Hakyeon sighed deeply. “I hope you’ll forgive me,” he said as he stood up. “You should go home,” he suggested after a look at the window. “Take a long rest, and then—” he cut himself off.

Sanghyuk kept quiet as he gathered his belongings, and followed Hakyeon down the narrow hallways wondering what made the man’s behavior change so drastically. Perhaps it was the mention of Wonshik and his excruciating sessions at the temple with the monks who tried to heal his eye— perhaps it was something else.

Before he left, Sanghyuk hugged Hakyeon tightly.

“We’ll find him,” Hakyeon said, almost promised, and Sanghyuk nodded. “We’ll find him, and bring him back, whole.”

As the door closed behind Sanghyuk, he fished out the card, and took a closer look at it.

On the bus – the first one of the day – Sanghyuk searched on the location of the address Hakyeon had given him on his phone, noting that the place he would have to visit was in one of the better off areas of the city— unlike most of those that led a business with anything to do with the paranormal.

 

At home, the solitude was even louder— it had been a little over a week since Taekwoon disappeared, and Hakyeon needed some days to come around after what happened to Wonshik’s eye. The two of them had been partners in their business for a long time, and before Hakyeon had recognized the true danger of the situation, he blamed Sanghyuk for Wonshik’s pain.

For the past couple of days, they’d been working together, because past his initial grudge, Hakyeon realized that Taekwoon’s disappearance and Wonshik’s loss of his third eye were closely connected— and the trail led them to the Netherworld.

Hakyeon had the ability to open small rifts between the two worlds, though he couldn’t venture into the Netherworld— no mortal person was allowed to come and go between the two. For Hakyeon, there was a foyer, or a lobby for the Netherworld, a type of observational room from which he could watch parts of the otherworld from a safe distance. He could use proxies to keep himself safe from the influence of the Netherworld without having to give up anything in particular.

That’s where Sanghyuk had spent most of the last few days— in that room, observing different regions of the Netherworld to seek Taekwoon’s trace.

He couldn’t find anything, but Sanghyuk felt like that each time he returned from the lobby, he brought a little part of the Netherworld with himself into the mortal plane while leaving a bit of himself in there to wither away in the darkness.

The shadows in the corners of the bedroom seemed deeper, and Sanghyuk couldn’t do anything but stare into them, like he did in the observational room— the place he imagined as a tunnel at the end of which he had expected to find Taekwoon.

There was no Taekwoon, but something that tore at Sanghyuk’s existence without him noticing it.

The walls seemed to close in on Sanghyuk, and he pulled the blanket over his head.

He was so exhausted, but he was afraid to go to sleep— afraid, that he wouldn’t wake up in his bedroom, but somewhere else.

Something pressed onto his chest, and when Sanghyuk opened his eyes after having fallen asleep, he realized that in the darkness of the room, there was a black figure towering above him.

“Taekwoon?” Sanghyuk whispered. His heart picked up almost immediately— he recognized Taekwoon’s silhouette, he could recognize it anywhere, in the deepest of darkness even, the broad shoulders, the hill of his cheeks.

“H-help,” the figure choked in Taekwoon’s voice, but in a strangely distorted way, and then the figure wrapped its fingers around Sanghyuk’s neck. “Help, help, help, help, _help_ —” it chanted with Taekwoon’s words, pressing its thumbs into Sanghyuk’s throat.

As Sanghyuk fought to peel the iron-like grip off his neck, he felt that something was trying to pull the shadowy figure off his body, jerking at its legs— when he glanced behind its shoulders, he couldn’t see— _anything._

Suddenly Sanghyuk was back in the tunnel, and he could hear himself screaming at the top of his lungs— there was no Hakyeon to build a proxy around him, and the Netherworld slammed into him—

The Netherworld drilled into Sanghyuk’s core, wrapped its disintegrating tendrils around his mortality.

“Find me!” Taekwoon shouted, and Sanghyuk’s eyes snapped open, his fingers around his own neck going slack as soon as the influence dissipated back into the shadows.

Sanghyuk clambered to his feet, tripping in the blanket and falling to the ground face first as he slipped off the futon. He flicked on the small lamp on the ground next to the mattress, and stared hard into the blackness that not even the warm light could penetrate in the corner across the room.

It was as if it was liquid, dripping down and seeping into the wallpaper, staining it.

Without a moment to waste, Sanghyuk pulled on a pair of pants and a sweater, grabbed his phone and wallet where the address and the name card was tucked in safely, and left the apartment hastily, backing out of the hallway because he couldn’t bring himself to turn his back to the— that thing.

It was too late— or too early to use public transportation. He had slept through the day, and now it was around two in the morning. He couldn’t bear the thought of calling for a taxi, of having to deal with the driver who couldn’t comprehend the shit Sanghyuk had seen.

Taekwoon’s jeep was still parked in the lot a few corners away, unused for a whole week. Sanghyuk didn’t have his license yet, but Taekwoon had taught him the basics in their free time— it was an emergency anyway.

Sitting inside the car, long missed traces of Taekwoon greeted Sanghyuk, and he sunk into the driver’s seat— it had taken up the shape of Taekwoon’s body, and his smell had seeped into the covers, the dashboard, every centimeter of the interior.

For a moment, Sanghyuk thought he was just waiting for Taekwoon do whatever business had while Sanghyuk guarded the jeep.

For a moment, he thought that Taekwoon would get in the car in the next few minutes.

Sanghyuk waited until he noticed the shadows in the other end of the parking lot shift, the cold blue light of the lampposts flicker on and off— he ignited the engine, and the tires squealed as he stepped on the gas, eager to put as much distance between him and the darkness as possible.

He ran all the yellow lights, and heeded no stops sign through the sleeping city, while constantly glancing into the rearview mirror— sometimes he thought he caught the shape of a darkened person sitting in the back until he did a double take to make sure there was nothing behind him.

He wished it was daylight, but then he reminded himself that with stronger light, shadows were prone to get sharper— Sanghyuk wasn’t sure if he wanted this one to gain shape, because he was afraid that it would look like Taekwoon.

He didn’t want Taekwoon’s shadow— he wanted Taekwoon.

The rich neighborhood the GPS led Sanghyuk into was curving clean streets up a hill with comforting yellow lights every twenty meters on each side, and lawn that looked vibrant green even in the night, illuminated with warm orange.

Sanghyuk pulled over when he neared his location, the GPS pinging, recorded voice clear in a soothing way— at least it wasn’t distorted like the voices inside Sanghyuk’s head.

The empty driveway curled along hedges, beyond a dark wooden gate and limestone brick fences from behind which the terracotta roof tiles of a low villa peeked out, most of it staying hidden in the shadows— normal shadows. One part of the front lit up behind the fence just a moment before Sanghyuk got out of the car.

The address was right— what wasn’t right was the darkness underneath the jeep.

Sanghyuk halted, and turned back towards the vehicle.

He couldn’t see it— no, he felt the darkness coiling between the tires, lapping at the very edges and retreating when it touched yellow light.

Sanghyuk turned on his heels, and ran up to the gate. Before he could press something on the metal panel of the gate-phone, something buzzed, clicked, and the wooden door opened for him. All it needed was for Sanghyuk to press down on the knob, and enter.

He looked over his shoulder, hoping that Taekwoon’s car hadn’t been swallowed yet— but it seemed that Taekwoon’s presence in the jeep was just too much for the darkness to consume.

There was a tall person standing at the porch, and Sanghyuk couldn’t see the man’s face because of the source of light from behind him, pouring out of the house, but Sanghyuk felt at ease when the gate clicked close behind his back.

The person unwound his arms from across his chest, and reached towards Sanghyuk as Sanghyuk walked up to him.

Sanghyuk didn’t know what the man was asking from him— money? His hand? But then he wriggled his fingers, and realization struck Sanghyuk.

He placed the name card on the man’s palm.

“I’m Jaehwan,” the man introduced himself, and tore the card into two. “Tell Hakyeon to consider his favor done.”

Sanghyuk swallowed the lump forming in his throat and nodded— jerked his head up and down, and then followed Jaehwan inside the blinding whiteness until his eyes adjusted.

The brightness clawed at his eyes, but he welcomed it nonetheless. Anything to drive away the darkness.

“You’re the eye specialist?” Sanghyuk asked meekly as he toed off his shoes and went after Jaehwan. The floor was white, shiny, and slippery tiles. The walls were a combination of light beige wallpaper and smooth white paint— the lights were white, the furniture was white, the decoration was white, everything was white with little colors mixed in, and Sanghyuk’s head began to ache. The whiteness exhausted his eyes.

“Sort of,” Jaehwan lifted his shoulders, sharp in his baggy shirt, “I’m his assistant.”

Sanghyuk formed an ‘o’ with his mouth.

They walked through a hallway, across the whole house— Sanghyuk felt as if Jaehwan was giving him a tour of his – theirs? – home, but Sanghyuk couldn’t focus on anything but the specialist.

What kind of person would it be?

What were they going to do anyway?

“Hongbin-ah,” Jaehwan called softly when they reached a bright room, separated from the others with an empty archway, no doors. It looked like a small clinic, full of equipment and a currently occupied surgical chair installed in the middle. The blinds were drawn, all lights on.

Suddenly, Sanghyuk wasn’t so sure about this.

The man lying in the chair moved upon hearing his name, and turned towards them. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses.

Before Sanghyuk could even begin to wonder why someone would be wearing glasses inside – he wouldn’t have blamed him, the whole house felt like as if the walls were radiating sunlight – the man lifted them off his nose and—

“Oh,” said Sanghyuk.

Hongbin stared at them with misty eyes, his blurred irises cloudy, but he looked completely seeing.

Sanghyuk knew that Hongbin was seeing him somehow— just not in the typical way.

He felt a large hand on the small of his back, and Jaehwan was pushing Sanghyuk inside the office, straight towards the chair as Hongbin sat up and hopped off with surety in his movements.

“So,” Hongbin started, rounding the seat without a falter in his steps. Maybe he knew every inch of this house like the back of his hand— Sanghyuk had lived in his parents’ home for twenty years, and he still fumbled around with his eyes closed. The apartment he shared with Taekwoon was even worse in that aspect.

“I guess—” Jaehwan spoke up, already in one of the corners, standing by a metal counter. He was arranging equipment that clinked quietly. “What ails you, kid?”

Sanghyuk thought for a long moment and tried not to squirm under Hongbin’s scrutinizing eyes— it was clear to him by now that the two led a not so ordinary private clinic, if Hongbin being blind and also an eye specialist was anything to go by.

Was Hongbin really blind?

No.

Sanghyuk was.

“I can’t see,” he said.

 

They let him sleep on the sofa in the living room until morning came.

After Sanghyuk had revealed his problem, Hongbin had hummed, accepted the gloves Jaehwan prepared for him, and had lifted Sanghyuk’s eyelids with steady hands, probably to examine him.

“I’m pretty sure there is nothing wrong with your eyes,” Hongbin had said.

“Not like—” Sanghyuk had started, but Hongbin interrupted.

“Jaehwan, does he see?”

“He didn’t walk into the wall,” Jaehwan had shrugged. Sanghyuk had let out a desperate exhale.

“You can sleep on the couch tonight. In the morning, you will go straight to Hakyeon, and tell him to bring Wonshik back,” Hongbin had said, almost in a commanding tone, and Sanghyuk had flinched when the gloves snapped off his hands.

“And you come back too,” Jaehwan had added as Hongbin had left them.

Sanghyuk woke with a start, the first sunrays breaking through dawn, soft orange on the large windows. The house was eerily quiet, and though the lights were off, the shadows were ordinary, static. Sanghyuk felt safe. It was as if whatever had been in his bedroom and under the car couldn’t get into this building.

Still, he left without a word, fumbling with the gate outside until he decided it would be less of a hassle to just climb over the fence. The jeep was still parked where he had left it, but somehow— it looked more worn down, less saturated. Maybe it was just dawn playing tricks with him. Maybe it was mirroring how Sanghyuk felt.

He dreaded going back home— he didn’t know if it was Hongbin’s command, or the darkness that drove him out of the apartment keeping him from going home. Probably the latter.

Instead, he drove towards Hakyeon’s place, going slow on the roads as the traffic was becoming busier, just before rush hour. He couldn’t run amok like last night, especially not without a license.

When Sanghyuk arrived, he rapped on the door impatiently, thoughts swarming his head, loud thoughts— what was Hakyeon thinking, sending him to Hongbin? Did Hakyeon really think Hongbin would be able to help him? What did Hongbin want with Wonshik?

He didn’t hear the door opening, and he almost punched Wonshik in the face, but the man grasped his wrist in the last moment. A beanie was pulled over his head, down to his eyebrows, and the first thing Sanghyuk noticed on him was the edge of a white bandage that was wrapped around his forehead peeking out from under the hat.

“Sorry,” Sanghyuk apologized— for the almost-punch, or for causing Wonshik to lose his third eye, he wasn’t sure, maybe both.

Wonshik shook his head with a gentle smile— he was always gentle, gentle, and even when he was in pain, after he had writhed on the floor, screaming, he had smiled at Sanghyuk and told him in hoarse voice that it wasn’t his fault.

The world didn’t— Sanghyuk didn’t deserve his forgiveness. If Sanghyuk didn’t go to Wonshik in the first place to ask for his help, then he would still have his eye. He should have asked Hakyeon to come along.

Hakyeon would have noticed the first sign of something going wrong and he would have stopped Wonshik before it was too late. He would have stopped Wonshik, unlike Sanghyuk who had just stood there for minutes before he realized that he should call for help.

“Hakyeon is asleep,” Wonshik said quietly, still standing in the door. He was dressed for outside, a khaki windbreaker pulled up to his collarbones and a white long sleeve peeking out of the coat. “Would you mind coming along?”

“Where are you going?” Sanghyuk asked without a second thought. A cold breeze blew across the narrow street where Hakyeon lived, and Sanghyuk shivered, realizing that he was only wearing a knitted sweater that didn’t offer much protection against the more ferocious autumn winds that chased the fog and grey clouds away, the type of wind that brought freezing, dry air with vibrant pink and orange sunsets.

“The library,” Wonshik answered, and stepped out, forcing Sanghyuk to step back on the tiny porch, and locked the door. He turned around, stuffing his hands and the key into the jacket’s pockets.

“You can drive,” Sanghyuk said, handing the car keys to a surprised Wonshik, and began to lead the way to the corner where he parked the car, the street so narrow that vehicular traffic was prohibited.

Wonshik let out a sorrowful sigh when he noticed the jeep, and unlocked it after a moment of hesitation— or surprise. He had ridden the car a lot of times before, with Taekwoon behind the wheel, before Sanghyuk and Taekwoon even met. Maybe, for a moment, Wonshik thought that Taekwoon was back upon seeing his car.

“Which library are we visiting?” Sanghyuk spoke up when Wonshik started the car. It took the engine a few tries to sputter to life, and Wonshik revved it a few times to make sure it wouldn’t break down.

“The Archives.” Wonshik unlocked his phone, searched for something, and handed it to Sanghyuk. “Put the address in the GPS, would you?”

“Why not the National Library?” Sanghyuk asked as he typed in the address. The building was half an hour drive away through the busiest parts of the downtown area, on the other side of the river. The bridge closest to them was closed for some event, so they would have to go around.

“What I need are old books, ancient books,” Wonshik said. He cranked up the heating, and turned on the radio, searching for a channel that wasn’t playing white noise— it was as if he was waiting for Sanghyuk to ask the question that hung in the air between them.

“What are— we searching for?” Sanghyuk wrinkled his forehead, his words slow and cautious.

Wonshik placed a hand on his forehead, and looked at Sanghyuk with dark eyes.

“Old Gods.”

 

The Old Gods were said to be primary entities. They were the answer to questions that couldn’t be answered. They were older than Earth, the same age as the Universe itself— they came to be when the first matter appeared, as the anti-matter that unmade everything that had been made.

Fast forward a few billion years, and when humans became more intellectual, the Old Gods latched onto this understanding. Fast forward some more thousand years, and the influence of the Old Gods was so enormous, they had civilizations worshipping them, sacrificing to them to appease their hunger for more to corrupt.

Civilizations rose, cultures prospered, and religions were born— the Old Gods were picked apart, and put together into ideals of divine entities, deities, gods and goddesses, and the Old Gods were slowly forgotten, cast away into the fog of oblivion and obscurity.

 

“I thought the Netherworld was the Old Gods’ realm,” Sanghyuk shook his head. He was tired of reading books, especially ones that weren’t even written in his language but in ones that were already dead.

Wonshik hummed. He had taken his beanie off, and unwrapped the bandage from around his head— now there was only a white gauze dressing in the middle of his forehead, partially hidden by his silvery bangs.

“If anything, it would be the other way around,” Wonshik said absentmindedly.

“What do you mean?” Sanghyuk asked, and he looked at the tome that he had been reading.

Wonshik lifted his head, and glanced at Sanghyuk as if to assess him. “The Old Gods could be a realm like the Netherworld or our plane for all we know.”

Sanghyuk leaned back in his chair, thinking— there was the seed of a thought planted deep in his mind, and he struggled to dig it out.

The Archives’ silence had been choking Sanghyuk ever since they stepped inside through the back, Wonshik exchanging a few words with a janitor in hushed tones, before the guy led them to a staircase and told them that they had two hours. The towering shelves smelled musky in the basement’s stagnant air, the bustling of the government building above them not reaching them at all. The lights above them were all turned on, casting faint yellow on every surface they reached— the ones they couldn’t, Sanghyuk shied away from the dark corners, the memory of the black shadow seeping into the wallpaper of his bedroom still fresh in his mind.

He hadn’t told Wonshik about his dream yet— if it was a dream at all. The one where Taekwoon tried to strangle Sanghyuk, like the atmosphere of the Archives seemed to try to strangle Sanghyuk as well.

He hadn’t noticed it yet, since he was busy looking for answers inside the lines of dusting parchments and flaking book pages, but now that he began to think, he couldn’t ignore the feeling.

Something lurked between the shelves.

“What if—” Sanghyuk began, causing Wonshik to look up again, “the Netherworld is an Old God?”

The lights went out.

 

A scream slashed across the silence— it was Sanghyuk, and Taekwoon, and Wonshik screaming at the same time, no, someone else, multiple persons, a crowd screaming and moaning in agony.

Smoke filled Sanghyuk’s nose, and he woke up with a start.

He couldn’t see.

It was quiet once again.

He held back his breath, and he could hear someone else breathe next to him.

Something clicked, and an engine puffed loudly before it died again. Underneath the smoke, Sanghyuk could smell Taekwoon’s scent.

He was in Taekwoon’s jeep.

Wonshik cursed under his breath, and tried the engine again.

“Wonshik,” Sanghyuk whispered. “I can’t see.”

“Sshh,” Wonshik quietened him softly. “It’s okay, I’ll take you to Hongbin— or— or where should I take you?” There was panic laced in Wonshik’s voice.

Sanghyuk’s hands were shaking as he lifted them to his face, and pressed his fingers along the border of his eyebrows and cheekbones. There was nothing covering his face that would have kept his sight dark. He felt his eyelashes tickle his fingertips as he blinked, but the action of blinking was lost— he couldn’t feel it at all.

He was blinking, and he didn’t register— his eyes were open, and he couldn’t see anything.

“Wonshik,” Sanghyuk panted, breaths turning shallow, “what happened— w-why can’t I see?”

The engine roared to life, and Sanghyuk almost hit his head against the glass as Wonshik stepped on the gas. Sanghyuk grabbed onto the door handle, fingers ramming against the door before he found the handle itself.

“I don’t know,” Wonshik said, trying to sound collected. “When the lights went out, you started screaming, and— I don’t know!” he hit the wheel, honking, and Sanghyuk jumped in his seat, heart beating out of his chest.

Sanghyuk clawed at his eyes with blunt nails, rubbing at them and pressing his eyeballs gently, but not even spots came. It was just darkness.

He felt— was he hyperventilating?

He couldn’t go blind just like this— he needed to save Taekwoon from the Netherworld.

Was it the Old Gods? Had it been the Old Gods who had taken Taekwoon—?

Oh god.

Sanghyuk pulled his knees up and leaned forward until the seatbelt let him, and screamed.

 

He was back in Hakyeon’s observational room— this time it was less of a tunnel and more of an office. He could see dark silhouettes and the grey shapes of objects scattered in the room, as if they were mere lines drawn with graphite or coal. They were not whole in the shadows.

Sanghyuk turned around, and looked out the large windows that covered one wall of the room— nothing but darkness welcomed him on the other side.

Whispers echoed quietly, coming from a tunnel— behind Sanghyuk, there was a gaping hole of an air duct on the wall. Something skittered away. There was always tension in the air of the observational room, pressing down on Sanghyuk’s chest, but now, he could barely breathe, he was struggling to fill his lungs with enough oxygen.

The glass cracked.

Something darker than black began to bead in the largest crack, like blood beads on the skin after a paper cut.

 

“It’s here,” Sanghyuk woke, taking a deep, rattling gasp of oxygen as he shot up. The first thing he saw was Hakyeon’s terrified face, and then Wonshik’s naked forehead, a black hole staring into Sanghyuk’s.

“What’s here?” Jaehwan asked from behind.

Sanghyuk clambered up, and hooked his arms around Hakyeon, pulling him down. He clawed at Hakyeon’s shoulder, desperate to feel his physical form— Sanghyuk felt as if he released Hakyeon, he would be pulled back into the Netherworld.

He needed something to hold onto.

“Shut it off,” Sanghyuk said. “It’s seeping through your proxy.”

“What’s here?!” Jaehwan shouted.

Sanghyuk pulled away from Hakyeon, and turned his head, still not releasing the other. Hongbin was in the middle of pushing a flailing Jaehwan onto Hakyeon’s worn couch with a low growl. The eye specialist directed his unseeing-seeing gaze at Sanghyuk.

“An Old God. It’s seeping into our domain— I can feel it,” Sanghyuk whimpered, curling up while still attached to Hakyeon. “It’s been using me as a way to latch onto this plane and gain foothold,” he whispered.

Hakyeon’s arms around his torso were somewhat comforting. Still, he couldn’t tell his body to stop trembling.

“What the fuck is happening?” Jaehwan asked the question that every mind in the room was thinking.

The answer was—

An Old God.

Nobody answered.

“Okay, let me rephrase it,” Jaehwan cleared his throat, shifting in his seat uncomfortably. “What should we do?”

Wonshik eased himself into an armchair with a groan. Hakyeon’s office was spacious, but now it felt stuffy. It was well-lit with lamps and scented candles on the desks, but when Sanghyuk noticed something move on the far wall, he squeezed his eyes shut, and willed his mind to focus on Hakyeon’s arms around him.

“Calm down,” Hakyeon whispered quietly to Sanghyuk.

“We need to find Taekwoon,” Hongbin suggested. “It started with his disappearance, didn’t it?”

“No,” Wonshik shook his head. “Creatures had been crawling out of rifts from the Netherworld for as long as we know—”

“But the anomalies picked up after he disappeared, right?” Hongbin interrupted. His level-headedness brought some kind of serenity to the chaos that was storming through Sanghyuk’s conscious. He wished he could be as orderly as Hongbin, but right now, he couldn’t think straight.

“Are you suggesting that when Taekwoon disappeared—” Wonshik began, latching onto Hongbin’s theory, “a rift big enough for the Old God opened?”

Hongbin nodded. “The Netherworld is mixing with our realm.” There was a sense of finality in his voice that Sanghyuk didn’t know if he liked. It sounded all so simple when Hongbin summarized it like this.

“So we just have to close the rift, right? Easy-peasy,” Jaehwan deducted, leaning onto his knees with his elbows. He looked both eager and unwilling, and Sanghyuk didn’t know how Jaehwan managed it.

“We must find Taekwoon,” Sanghyuk said quietly without looking at the others. Four set of eyes rested on him as he slowly released Hakyeon.

The flame of one of the candles went out, and Sanghyuk swallowed. It was here.

“Even if we find him,” Hongbin began, not missing the candle where Sanghyuk’s eyes were directed. He stepped between them, forcing Sanghyuk to look up at him instead. “How are we going to bring him back, given he’s alive at all? We can’t enter the Netherworld.”

“He’s alive,” Sanghyuk exhaled, holding Hongbin’s gaze. “And I’ve been to the Netherworld,” he turned towards Hakyeon.

“No,” Hakyeon shook his head, shoulders sagging. “The observational room is not inside the Netherworld.”

“It’s an in-between place, meaning—” Sanghyuk started.

“Meaning,” Wonshik took over, rubbing his hands together. His face was twisted in concentration. “Sanghyuk could enter the Netherworld, theoretically.”

“Theoretically,” Hongbin echoed with a scowl. It was clear on his face that he didn’t like the idea. “You do realize that there’s just too many things that could go wrong with this idea, right?”

“Yeah,” Jaehwan snorted, “for starters— no mortal can enter the Netherworld without withering away, or worse.” Sanghyuk frowned, because he knew that Jaehwan was right.

“Hakyeon could protect me with his proxy,” Sanghyuk suggested, looking at Hakyeon expectantly. Said man inhaled deeply, sinking down onto an ancient looking pouffe. He rubbed a hand over his face, and the motion reminded Sanghyuk of two days ago— or was it just yesterday when he left for home? He had no idea. It felt like a lifetime ago.

“We should call for advice.”

“We should leave,” Sanghyuk added, quivering as one by one the candles were extinguished by a breeze that none of them could feel. Hakyeon’s protective wards were slowly being unmade, and Sanghyuk didn’t want to be there when the last defenses crumbled.

 

They went to the temple where the monks had been treating Wonshik with his affliction. In between the burnt colored foliage, the sight of the tall pagoda with its vibrant jade walls was a sight for the sore eyes— the peace of mind the verdant tower promised Sanghyuk was more than enough for him to let himself relax in the back of Jaehwan’s quiet sedan.

Hongbin and Jaehwan talked in hushed tones about something as Sanghyuk rested his head against the window. Skeletal brown trees that still clung to autumn had exchanged the skyscrapers of the downtown area and the smaller, older brick buildings of the outer districts as they made their way up the small mountain just at the outskirts of the city. A serpentine curved through the forest, afternoon sun bright but giving off little warmth.

Sanghyuk shivered— he hoped the Old God’s influence hadn’t reached this area yet. He was sad to leave Taekwoon’s jeep behind, but they couldn’t risk spreading it further. Sanghyuk seemed to be corrupted enough as it was.

He looked down at his hands and balled them into a fist, the tendons on his wrists popping out, his knuckles turning white stars. He didn’t want last night to repeat when he lost control— the Old God would take the first chance to strangle him with Sanghyuk’s own hands, just like in his bedroom.

The only thing Sanghyuk didn’t understand was Taekwoon’s presence there. Was it maybe Taekwoon’s way of warning Sanghyuk? Or was it just the Old God playing tricks on his mind?

He couldn’t be sure.

Sanghyuk hoped the monks would have an idea how to stop all of this. There had to be somebody.

Hakyeon’s car ahead of them stopped in front of a large wooden gate a little ways away from where the pagoda stood smaller than before, but more imposing, more powerful than from the distance. Jaehwan mumbled something to Hongbin and got out of the car to walk to Hakyeon who had also gotten out and was watching Jaehwan.

“What’s Buddhism have to do with the Netherworld?” Sanghyuk asked as he watched Jaehwan and Hakyeon discuss something.

“The fight against the Netherworld is beyond religion,” Hongbin supplied. He was wrapped up in Jaehwan’t thick coat, shoulders collapsing as he hugged himself into a tight ball, but Sanghyuk was close enough to see the small spasms that ran through Hongbin. “This temple has the biggest influence in the city in terms of religion and faith, so now it leads the defense. They are the ones that pay all of us— Taekwoon too, through Hakyeon.”

“Hakyeon’s role is that important?” Sanghyuk blinked in confusion. Sanghyuk was aware Hakyeon filled an important role by being Taekwoon’s employer and having seemingly infinite amounts of knowledge and connections, but Sanghyuk hadn’t realized the severity of this importance before.

“He’s from this place,” Hongbin tilted his chin towards the top of the gate. It was now open, but just enough for a human to pass. Hakyeon and Jaehwan were talking to a monk dressed in orange. “Just like me," he added.

“Taekwoon too?” Sanghyuk asked. He knew a lot about Taekwoon, he’d told Sanghyuk about a lot of things after it was evident that Sanghyuk wasn’t going to leave Taekwoon because of his ‘job’, but now Sanghyuk was starting to think that half of what he knew about Taekwoon’s past was just a big fat lie.

Sanghyuk didn’t mind— he could understand Taekwoon lying to him, but Sanghyuk didn’t want it to get to the point where he wouldn’t even recognize Taekwoon anymore.

He didn’t want the other half of Taekwoon to be a lie too.

“Not exactly,” Hongbin shook his head. “Five or six years ago he just appeared one day and offered his services to the temple. He was a wild beast, and trouble always found him— there wasn’t a day when he wouldn’t come back beaten, and yet, he bled anger until my grandfather put him to hunting. After that, he calmed down. But I never really talked with him, so I don’t know anything else about him— I’m not his boyfriend,” he said with a slight smile, no malevolence in it, no sarcasm. Maybe he was smiling at the absurdity of the situation.

Boyfriend of the only hunter in the city, an outsider, and probably the only one who could bring the hunter back and stop the city from being destroyed. Boyfriend of the hunter who had appeared one day—

The same way he disappeared.

Sanghyuk was about to open his mouth when Jaehwan got back inside the car with a knot between his eyebrows.

“They’re not happy that we’re here,” Jaehwan informed Hongbin with a frustrated sigh, and glanced into the rearview mirror— as soon as his eyes met Sanghyuk’s, his gaze snapped back to the road. Hakyeon’s tail lights went out, and both cars slowly rolled through the now completely open gates, with two monks at each side, staring at the vehicles with impassive expressions. Sanghyuk pulled himself smaller.

“I’ll deal with it,” Hongbin mumbled.

“Are you okay?” Jaehwan asked quietly, the tone in his voice not meant for Sanghyuk to hear. It was intimate, and Sanghyuk felt like he was intruding— the least he could do was to look away, but he didn’t miss Jaehwan’s hand sliding over Hongbin’s leg.

“I’m fine,” Hongbin let out a shuddering exhale. “I just— hate this fucking place.”

 

Sanghyuk didn’t have to wonder too long. He trailed after Hakyeon leading the way to the pagoda with a monk. Wonshik walked beside Sanghyuk as if to comfort him, while Jaehwan and Hongbin lagged behind as Jaehwan held Hongbin’s arm securely.

When they stepped inside the pagoda, Sanghyuk’s feet began to prickle from some kind of force that he couldn’t figure out— he didn’t know if the feeling was comfortable or not. It was different from when his legs would fall asleep after having them tucked underneath himself, but somehow a memory of Taekwoon resting his head on Sanghyuk’s lap resurfaced, and with it the emotions that Sanghyuk had felt that moment— serenity, peace, ease. Love.

“Nice to see you visit home.”

Sanghyuk startled at the new voice, and after a moment of frantic search, he found a hunched monk shuffling into the shrine that they had been escorted into.

“The feeling’s mutual,” Hongbin snarled into another direction before Jaehwan leaned to his ear and softly whispered something to him. Hongbin’s eyes found the old monk, but Sanghyuk had a feeling that he couldn’t see anything.

What was with this place?

“Heard you made good business with your little boyfriend,” the monk noted with a frown as he assessed Jaehwan for a flippant moment. He then looked back at Hongbin. “How do you fare in a sightless man’s world?”

Hongbin’s hands were balled into fists. Sanghyuk looked at Wonshik clueless, but the man just shrugged.

“Let’s quit it,” Hakyeon spoke up, stepping between the two fighting sides. “We’re not here for a family reunion. There’s something more important that needs to be addressed. Urgently.”

The monk frowned, and Hongbin sagged into Jaehwan’s hold without his straight back hunching. Pride was a dangerous thing to play with.

“Ah, yes,” the monk said. “Our little hound has gone missing and he doesn’t know the way back home,” he sighed, almost dramatically. Anger flared up in Sanghyuk in tides, but Wonshik grabbed his wrist before Sanghyuk could even think of tackling the monk to the floor, and shook his head discreetly.

“It’s a matter of time— I’ve told you over the phone,” Hakyeon said, and the monk nodded.

“What makes you think your foolish plan will work?” he asked.

“That’s why we need your help. To protect Sanghyuk in the Netherworld,” Hakyeon replied, and after a pregnant moment, he sent Sanghyuk a meaningful look. “And… something else too.”

 

Foolish was a weak word to describe their plan— it was beyond crazy and ludicrous. But it was the only plan they could come up with in such a short time, and if there was a silver of hope of rescuing Taekwoon, then Sanghyuk was ready to give up everything.

Ever since he’d started dating Taekwoon, ever since this new world opened up for him, Sanghyuk knew that he would never be able to go back to his normal life. There was just no way for him to pretend that the shadows in the alleys were empty, that the city at night didn’t crawl with monstrosities beyond imagination.

He couldn’t let Taekwoon go. He was ready to fight tooth and claw for Taekwoon and the reality that was their home.

Sanghyuk had to give up his mortal sight. That was the only way for him to actually _see_ if he were to enter the Netherworld. Maybe that was what they had been doing wrong with Hakyeon all along— whatever Sanghyuk thought he saw in the observational room was more likely just Sanghyuk’s rendition of the Netherworld, and not the real place.

That’s why he couldn’t find Taekwoon.

He couldn’t see.

Wonshik would be his eye— the Seeker’s third eye was gone, destroyed by the Old God when they delved too deep into the Netherworld without protection, but his Sight was still there, saved and cared for by the monks in the past week. He just needed a replacement.

“Think of it like buying new optical lenses for your camera,” Hakyeon suggested.

The new lenses would be Sanghyuk’s left eye.

 

Sanghyuk recalled one of the tales Taekwoon had told him about the layers of the realms— there was Zenith, the empire of light from where energy and life came from. Zenith embraced everything that had ever been made and would be made. Then there was the Netherworld, most visible through the night sky, and the flickering stars were the light of Zenith that punched through the fabric of the Netherworld— the Old God embraced the mortal realm, creating a dark sphere around them. In one culture’s world building, it was a tent with holes in it— that’s how Taekwoon had first explained the theory to Sanghyuk, and it had stuck to him, easy to understand.

There was an invisible boundary between the two realms— what would happen if the mortal plane became one with the Netherworld? Would the horrors that Taekwoon had been risking his life exterminating just prowl the streets unchecked? Would a permanent night dominate the sky?

Would their life become a nightmare?

Would the Old God’s influence drive everyone mad, like it was slowly creeping into the back of Sanghyuk’s mind, telling him to— _pick up the knife,_ no, _slice his throat_ — no, _slice your own throat_ —

Hongbin wrenched the knife out of Sanghyuk’s grip, the tip of the blade grazing the soft skin on his inner wrist.

“It’s for your eye,” Hongbin said, and tucked the obsidian knife back into its sheath, away from Sanghyuk’s reach.

Sanghyuk laid back down on the grass, and stared up at the branches of the _seonang namu_ , its leaves turning an array of golden yellow and burning orange, vibrant with life, like the sun that peeked through the tree’s foliage, branches decorated with stripes of different colored silk. The tree pulsated with something that Sanghyuk hadn’t felt since Taekwoon’s disappearance, and its peace seeped into Sanghyuk.

Feeling nature like this, with his skin, the grass tickling him, and ants crawling up his ankles, it comforted Sanghyuk— somehow it reminded him of Taekwoon’s soft embrace that he missed oh so much.

Sanghyuk’s left eye jumped, and he felt the painful twist as it tried to roll around all the way into the back of his head— he jerked a hand over his face, and squeezed his eyelids shut tightly. He felt the dark influence take control of his own muscles.

He resisted until Hakyeon returned with an old monk scuffling towards them on shaky legs, leaning onto a cane.

“ _Seonsaengnim_ ,” Hongbin greeted the monk, bowing to him. Sanghyuk sat up from the ground, hand slipping off his face, observing the conversation.

“It’s good to—” the monk sniffled, “ _see_ you, Hongbin-ah,” he grinned, and Hongbin let out an airy laugh as Sanghyuk realized that the monk’s eyes were not just closed on their own, but were sewn closed. A cold shiver jumped across Sanghyuk’s spine. He wondered what the monk’s story was— what Hongbin’s story was. He wondered what had happened to these people around him to shape them into those who they now were.

Wonshik shuffled behind Sanghyuk, catching his attention. The man was facing the tree, leaning his forehead against its bark, palms pressed to its sides, and his lips were moving with silent words. Sanghyuk looked up the tree again.

 _Seonang namu_ s were shamans’ gift to the later ages— holy trees dotting mountainous areas where the goddess _Seonangshin_ , a prominent deity resided. As the patron of villages and boundaries, it protected the temple from any kind of otherworldly influence. It also protected travelers on their journeys.

Wonshik was asking _Seonangshin_ to bless Sanghyuk before his trip.

“It would be better to do the transfer in our clinic. It’s cleaner there,” Sanghyuk heard Hongbin suggest.

Wonshik’s words grew louder, and Sanghyuk had to lie back down, fatigue washing over his muscles suddenly. The exhaustion wasn’t unpleasant per se— it was like a slowly advancing veil of fog that rolled over him, clouding his mind.

“The ritual needs to happen here,” Hongbin’s teacher said, his voice echoing, layered. “The water is different here. Water is the best conduit we can use.”

Sanghyuk’s ears were filled with Wonshik’s constant murmuring, as if he was chanting something ancient, and the ground beneath Sanghyuk rumbled— the tree behind him, and its roots above ground rumbled, as if answering to Wonshik’s call.

The leaves rustled as a breeze blew past the garden behind the temple, and the silk stripes twisted between the waving branches. The white sun peeked out from behind the foliage, and all Sanghyuk could do was stare into it until his consciousness numbed into nothingness.

 

No nothing. Nothingness was still something— it was a concept. Something, just like the Old God. Something, like the Netherworld.

Something, that could be undone.

Sanghyuk was in the tunnel. Or the memory of the tunnel. It was a spacious tunnel with warm orange lights dotting both sides, and asphalt beneath his feet, with freshly painted white stripes in the middle. The walls were shiny, glass mosaic that reflected back the lights, making everything appear brighter— it resembled Jaehwan and Hongbin’s home in some angles.

Taekwoon’s jeep was parked idle behind Sanghyuk, the headlights on. The engine sounded like it was about to give up, sputtering and coughing.

Sanghyuk turned back.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel, but an impenetrable wall of darkness. It swirled, wisps reaching out, like a vertical sea of black smoke, rippling with an invisible torrent.

Sanghyuk reached forward, and waited— he didn’t know for what. For a voice to tell him not to do it, for someone to show up and stop him before he could do it. For his subconscious or his heart to say something— but they listened quietly, mind empty of thoughts, and heart beating slowly.

For the first time in a long time, Sanghyuk felt in harmony with his own parts.

He dipped his hand into the darkness, and his fingers collided with a doorknob that he couldn’t see. The shape of the metal felt familiar. The lamps at the other end of the tunnel began to turn off, one by one, and the jeep’s headlights flickered.

Sanghyuk pushed the knob and opened the door. He stepped inside-outside before all the lights could vanish.

 

Taekwoon was sitting in the living room on the little couch that always let out strange sounds when someone shifted, the leather surface sagging and bunching underneath them. Sanghyuk closed the entrance behind him, and took off his shoes as he glanced at the show Taekwoon was watching. He noticed his own shirt hanging off the back of the couch, having left there in his rush in the morning— it was a familiar sight.

Slowly, Taekwoon’s apartment was being filled with Sanghyuk’s possessions, and coming to Taekwoon’s place to end the day felt more like ‘coming home’ than going to his parents’ house, to his own room that he knew every inch of.

Taekwoon turned around and smiled at Sanghyuk, his cheeks full with the take-out he was eating from a white box. Sanghyuk plopped down on the couch, and took the chopsticks from Taekwoon’s fingers to take a bite.

“I ordered for you too,” Taekwoon said, but he let Sanghyuk have another bite before he stole the chopsticks back.

Sanghyuk swallowed the food. It tasted shit, but at least it was cheap.

“I love you too,” Sanghyuk grinned and kissed Taekwoon on the mouth. Taekwoon set the container on the table, and wrapped his arms around Sanghyuk’s torso, pulling him closer.

“I missed you,” Taekwoon whispered when he pulled away, just for a single inhale, before he leaned in again. Sanghyuk sank his fingers into Taekwoon’s hair, catching on tiny knots that Taekwoon hissed at when Sanghyuk pulled accidentally.

“I miss you,” Taekwoon repeated. “Where have you been?”

“At class,” Sanghyuk murmured. He hated every minute of his lectures— he wanted to be with Taekwoon, at his place, in his car, at a hunt, he didn’t care if Taekwoon was next to him. He had a life more interesting than all of his fellow students could imagine.

“Where are you?” Taekwoon asked.

Sanghyuk pulled away. The TV was off, and darkness loomed in the living room. He could still see Taekwoon— lying naked on the couch under Sanghyuk, his lips glistening wetly. They were sweating, cheeks and necks flushed, chests rising rapidly.

“Why haven’t you found me yet?” Taekwoon whimpered, and his body was shaking. Sanghyuk couldn’t breathe. “I thought you loved me,” his voice was distorted.

Sanghyuk fell backwards.

 

He woke up panting heavily, drenched in sweat. He struggled to free himself from the blanket that had twisted around his body in his fitful sleep. His left eye twitched painfully.

It was just a dream, but the Old God had wormed itself into his dreams too. Anger flooded Sanghyuk— he couldn’t let the Old God corrupt his memories of Taekwoon. It could corrupt his eye, his hands, his body and his thoughts all it wanted, but these memories of Taekwoon were Sanghyuk’s, and Sanghyuk’s alone.

“Tell me son,” a monk spoke up, causing Sanghyuk to let out a surprised yelp. “Do you believe in God?”

Sanghyuk stared at the monk as he sat on his heels in the corner, back straight, arms resting on his thighs. It was Hongbin’s family member— probably his grandfather, if the wrinkles and liver patches on his skin were anything to go by. Sanghyuk didn’t know if he ever introduced himself.

“Which God?” Sanghyuk asked back, trying to calm his rapid heartbeat. He took a deep exhale, and rubbed his face, shaking the last remnants of the dream off. He didn’t want to relive it— he might as well never go to sleep ever again.

“You name it,” Hongbin’s grandfather said, and his wise eyes flashed in Sanghyuk’s direction.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Sanghyuk sighed, closing his eyes. He let his face tell the monk everything that he felt, feeling too tired to form the words.

“Do you believe in the success of your plan?” the old man continued, and nudged a wooden tray towards Sanghyuk’s futon. There was a small bowl with clean water sloshing in it. The monk gestured to the drink with calculated movements that radiated harmony.

“I want to… believe,” Sanghyuk mumbled, picking the bowl up hesitantly.

“I suppose that’s good enough,” Hongbin’s grandfather noted, and Sanghyuk took a sip. The water burned through his throat, and he almost dropped the bowl in his surprise. The monk snorted at his expression.

“What’s— this?” Sanghyuk coughed, blinking away his tears.

“Vodka,” the monk laughed, pushing himself up. “You don’t want to be sober for what’s coming.”

Sanghyuk’s stomach squeezed painfully— he had thought he would be ready to endure anything for Taekwoon’s sake, but as he got closer to the execution of the plan, he slowly had to realize that he was in for so much more than what he bargained for.

He didn’t know what to expect.

Pain, yes, but how much pain— what kind of pain?

Fear and terror. What would await him in the Netherworld?

The endless possibilities— there was no guarantee that Taekwoon was alive at all, no matter how hard Sanghyuk had convinced himself. The theory of the Old God seeping into their world because of Taekwoon was just as much possible as it wasn’t.

They didn’t know anything for sure.

For all they knew, Sanghyuk would die the moment he entered the Netherworld— if it even worked at all.

Nothing was set in stone.

“When was the last time you ate?” the monk asked, yanking Sanghyuk out of his thoughts, looking at Sanghyuk with a knowing look. Sanghyuk’s eyelids stuttered as he tried to blink his vision into sharpness, and shook his head to clear his thoughts. He tried to remember.

“I— don’t know? Yesterday, or— I don’t remember,” he sighed. He hadn’t felt hungry, so caught up in the happenings of the last one day that he couldn’t focus on such mundane things as eating. But now that Hongbin’s grandfather had pointed at it, Sanghyuk’s stomach grumbled loudly at the thought of food, and the painful feeling of emptiness in his stomach flared up so suddenly that Sanghyuk almost doubled over. That sip of vodka didn’t help either.

“Come,” the monk said, reaching out his arm in Sanghyuk’s general direction, not as a gesture of good will of being a support for Sanghyuk, but merely as an indication that he was welcome— in some ways at least.

Sanghyuk pushed himself onto all fours, took a deep breath, and pushed himself to his feet, hands braced against the wall.

“Nobody should die on empty stomach,” Hongbin’s grandfather added with a tone of amusement as he stepped out the small room. Sanghyuk followed him out into a hallway quietly, trailing after the monk.

 _Die_ , echoed in Sanghyuk’s head. He might as well be walking into his death right now.

Somehow, the monk’s pessimistic outlook – perhaps realistic – was somewhat refreshing. In retrospect, Wonshik and Hakyeon seemed optimistic about the outcome, while Hongbin remained rather skeptic, but there was a visible undertone of willingness to look at the bright side. Jaehwan, well, Jaehwan seemed to go along with any of Hongbin’s ideas without much opposition. 

Sanghyuk didn’t know what to think.

He just wanted to see Taekwoon again, unharmed, preferably.

Sitting at a counter in a rustic looking kitchen while Hongbin’s grandfather prepared his dishes – he offered his help, but the monk told him to sit back on his ass and keep quiet – Sanghyuk wondered if this was going to be his last meal.

Three bowls in receding size; rice in the biggest, the middle one was some kind of stew, and the smallest contained vegetables. Sanghyuk’s stomach practically gurgled at the sight of them.

The monk let out a loud snort at the sound. “You can have a second serving,” he gestured towards the food. “Eat.”

Sanghyuk dove in without grace, spooning at the stew first that didn’t seem to taste much, but maybe it was just his hunger that made everything feel more delicious than they were. He tried to savor everything while he could.

Chances were, he would never eat again.

“You know,” the monk spoke up, causing Sanghyuk to stop shoveling the rice into his mouth, just for a moment before he continued, “you and Hongbin aren’t so different.”

Sanghyuk struggled to swallow the amount of food in his mouth. “In what way?” he asked curiously.

“You’re both willing to do something colossally idiotic for love.” The monk tapped his fingers on the surface of the counter. “It cost Hongbin his sight— and you? You’re about to throw away your life for something that might not even make a difference.”

“We won’t know if we won’t try,” Sanghyuk lifted his shoulders. “Can I—?” he gestured towards the rice cooker, and Hongbin’s grandfather just shrugged. Sanghyuk helped himself another serving. “Even if I fail, the others will pick up where I left off, and see it through to the end,” he added.

“Hakyeon mentioned you used to be an outsider,” the monk changed the topic blatantly. “Do you regret it?”

“Sometimes,” Sanghyuk admitted, catching what the monk was referring to.

_Do you regret Taekwoon?_

Sometimes, he did. But those were the times when Sanghyuk wasn’t with Taekwoon.

“What do you know about the Old Gods?” Sanghyuk asked. He didn’t feel like talking about Taekwoon with Hongbin’s grandfather anymore.

“What makes you think there are more Old Gods?” the monk asked back, not in a surprised way, but more in a way that was to make Sanghyuk think about it more thoroughly. Like when a lecturer would ask a question to lead the class to a pre-determined answer.

Sanghyuk wondered if there was an answer to this question.

“Is there only one Old God, then?” Sanghyuk retaliated. He didn’t know why this was relevant to their plan— it didn’t make a difference if there was only one or more. At the end of the day, they were just mere mortals who died of infection or a single bullet wound— going against a god way beyond everything that was possible for them.

“Maybe there’s one, maybe there are more,” Hongbin’s grandfather said mysteriously. “It’s omnipotent, omniform, omniscient, omnificent— all the words that start with _omni_ you would see in a dictionary, and even more. The Old God is multidimensional, stretching way beyond our three dimensional understanding. Maybe there’s one, maybe there’re more— maybe the Old God is everything.”

They came back around in a circle, and Sanghyuk wasn’t sure if he liked the answer. If he knew more or understood less after the monk’s explanation.

“Or maybe the Old God is nothing,” Sanghyuk said after a moment. He didn’t know why he wanted to disprove the monk— maybe he just wanted to protect Hongbin’s pride, maybe he just wanted to prove himself.

Sanghyuk’s left eye jerked in its socket, and his fingers twitched viciously, almost tipping one of the bowls.

“Tell that to your eye,” Hongbin’s grandfather said, the expressionless mask of his face cracking at the sight of Sanghyuk’s eye jumping unnaturally. He was afraid.

Sanghyuk gritted his teeth, willing his fingers to stop as he fisted his hand, blunt nails sinking into his palm.

“Come,” the monk stood up. “They should have finished with the preparations.”

 

There was a natural hot spring underneath the pagoda, the basement level built as a bath for the monks. It wasn’t more than a short and wide hallway with benches and hangers on the wall which then opened into two separate rooms, one a shower room with rusty plumbing, while the other was just a room with a few bath-tub like holes in the ground with slightly elevated edges that were now lined with candles.

Two of the holes were filled with steaming water, and the atmosphere was pressing heavy on Sanghyuk’s chest.

Jaehwan was helping an already drunk Wonshik into one of the tubs, who then hissed at the temperature, and slurred something. Hakyeon stepped in front of Sanghyuk as he was taking his boots off.

“You can still change your mind,” Hakyeon said quietly for only Sanghyuk to hear.

“I have to do it,” Sanghyuk bit down on his lip hard.

“This is not your responsibility,” Hakyeon argued softly. He looked determined to make Sanghyuk change his mind, but he also seemed to know that Sanghyuk was already convinced— there wasn’t going to be anyone else to do this.

“I have to save Taekwoon.” Hakyeon sighed, and nodded, pulling Sanghyuk into a tight embrace.

“I’ll protect you at all costs,” the man promised. Sanghyuk trusted him.

They parted, and Sanghyuk undressed until his underwear, his mind too occupied to be embarrassed in front of so many people. The vodka he had downed after his dinner was working in his system, but he only felt slightly light-headed, a bit tipsy— he wondered if he should have drunk more alcohol.

He lowered himself into the water next to Wonshik’s, inhaling sharply when the water scalded his feet that he first dipped into it. He eased himself into the tub slowly, giving time to his body to get used to the temperature.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” Hongbin spoke up. The room was silent, his words echoing. Drips could be heard, and water lapping at the edges of the holes gently as Wonshik shifted around.

“We don’t know if it’s even going to work at all,” Hakyeon added as he crouched down at the other side of Sanghyuk’s tub. “But if it does, whatever’s going to happen, you’ll have to act quickly. Hopefully, with Wonshik’s help, you’ll be able to see in the Netherworld, and my proxy will protect you— for a time.”

Sanghyuk swallowed the lump in his throat. His heart was beating a mile a minute.

“Search for Taekwoon. Will him to appear. Shout his name, do whatever you think would work,” Hongbin said. “And try to avoid the Old God.”

Sanghyuk had a feeling that it wouldn’t be the Old God’s influence that he had to be vary of in the Netherworld, but he didn’t voice his concerns. It was too late for that.

“How do I get back?” Sanghyuk asked no one in particular.

Hakyeon’s face twisted as he closed his eyes for a long moment. He was about to open his mouth to reply when Hongbin’s teacher spoke up from his perch in the corner.

“Remember one thing— water is the best conduit.”

Hongbin glanced at his teacher, nodded, and somebody stepped behind Sanghyuk, crouching down above him. A bunched towel was placed behind his neck, and two hands slid over the sides of his head, gently tilting his head back onto the towel. He saw Jaehwan, upside-down.

“Good luck, kid,” Jaehwan said, and somebody nudged his mouth open, placing a leather stripe between his teeth. Sanghyuk pushed it around with his tongue until it felt comfortable enough, and then bit down on it.

A hand slid into his.

The obsidian blade glinted in the faint light, and Sanghyuk opened his eyes as wide as he could.

 

The pain that exploded in his face was nothing he’d ever felt before.

 

Wonshik’s scream echoed off the walls.

 

Something horrific flashed up in front of Sanghyuk’s eyes— something wicked, and incomprehensible.

He couldn’t see anything but darkness. The same darkness that had always greeted him at the end of the tunnel, the same darkness that coiled in the corner of their bedroom.

The balance shifted inside Sanghyuk, and he felt like he was being twisted inside out— being undone at the seams of his existence. One moment he was, and in the next— the moment before he was not.

Whatever was happening to him, it wouldn’t have been possible because he felt the nature of everything, the laws of everything try to keep him together in his shape, but the darkness seeped into him, and torn him apart from the inside before it put him back together.

It wasn’t painful— it was just not anything that could have happened to him in the mortal realm.

 

The ground was solid beneath Sanghyuk’s body. That was the first thing he felt— _he felt_.

He functioned like a human.

His skin was hypersensitive— he could feel the miniscule, chipped off particles of the concrete he was lying on dig into his skin, clogging his pores.

He was curled up. He felt his toes, fingers, limbs— his body was a human’s. His muscles functioned properly.

He tried to stretch until his legs and arms collided with four walls too close to him. He reached up with his arms, and when he couldn’t feel anything above him, he slowly uncurled from his position and sat up, before he rose into a crouch.

He slowly stood up, hands held above his head. He could see something grey penetrating the black.

He could _see._

He covered his right eye with a hand, but he could still see the grayness— only when he placed his palm in front of his left eye did the color turn back into black.

Wonshik’s eye was working— the plan worked. Or, at least this part of their plan.

Was he truly _in_ the Netherworld?

Sanghyuk jumped up and grabbed onto the ledges, his bare feet slipping on the side of the hole he woke up in. He pulled himself over the edge with a grunt that began to echo, and flopped onto the ground, listening to his voice die away as it grew quieter and more distorted. His own voice scared him.

Sitting up and looking around, Sanghyuk saw four dark figures standing in the penumbra that conquered the room— three gathered around the rectangle shaped hole next to the one Sanghyuk had climbed out, and one form hunched in the corner.

Another one was lying in the hole, arms braced on the edges.

When Sanghyuk realized the identity of the dark figures, he almost stumbled back into his own hole. He couldn’t see features, no, the bodies were just black silhouettes, as if they were cut out of the world, and left behind a hole of void in their place— were they placeholders? But he recognized them one by one by the shape of their bodies.

There was an eye on the forehead of the person who was lying on the ground— Wonshik. Unlike anything else in the room, the eye was white, and its iris was brown, the exact brown like Sanghyuk’s, and black pupils that diluted and undiluted. It blinked when Sanghyuk blinked his left eye, turned when Sanghyuk turned his left eye.

The connection was working indeed.

 

When Sanghyuk made it out the black pagoda, void shapes of monks meditating in the main hall and sitting in two rows, completely frozen like Sanghyuk’s friends down in the basement, he realized that the Netherworld was just a copy image of the real world, but was completely static, unmoving. It was covered in greyscale, unsaturated colors, and the eerie silence felt overwhelming in a deafening way. When Sanghyuk took a step, the motion of it felt alien to him— the whole Netherworld was alien to him.

It felt unnatural for him to be there.

He tried to come up with parallels between this and some kind of experience from the real world to assign that feeling to this so it wouldn’t feel so— unnatural, but he couldn’t. He had never experienced anything like this.

It was like when he tried to describe a completely new taste he’d never tasted before, trying to mix two or more different sensations into one, but this felt like as if he was tasked with describing an unknown color not even he himself could properly understand to someone who had been blind their whole life and never had the chance to truly experience colors.

The basic laws of which had surrounded Sanghyuk since he was born were non-existent in the Netherworld, and every fiber in his body opposed to it.

His own existence felt strange to him— like he was not home in his own body. Like he was not welcome in his own body.

A part of him wanted to lie down on the ground that didn't feel like the real ground— it didn’t give out that exact sound when he would walk on it in the real world. He wanted to lie down and never get up— let the Netherworld suck away his energy and absorb him into its warped, twisted way of existence as something unnatural.

Sanghyuk fell to his knees, the concrete of the paved road that led down from the pagoda into the main courtyard biting into his skin and tearing at the dull orange material he hadn’t noticed he was wearing before.

He lay down on his back, unable to fight against the force that was pulling him down, though it felt different than gravity. He stared at the dark grey sky, the coiling clouds swirling above him, and maybe there were tendrils reaching towards him like snapping tentacles, maybe it was just a fragment of his mind playing with him. He knew he needed his full focus— he needed all of himself to support him, but the part of him that told him to lie down and not move was in the Old God’s possession. In the Netherworld, without the veil between the two realms, nothing stopped the Old God from shaping Sanghyuk to its wish.

Something bright flashed on the sky, just for a blink of his left eye, but it was more than enough for Sanghyuk to snap out of his stupor. He pushed himself to all fours, and when he lifted his head, he noticed Taekwoon’s jeep in the parking lot, headlights flickering. The shape of both Hakyeon’s and Jaehwan’s cars were completely black, but the jeep was— full. Unsaturated, and if Sanghyuk focused, the vehicle even looked transparent, but it was there _more_ than anything else he’d seen in the Netherworld, and it was enough for Sanghyuk to clamber to his feet and begin running down towards the parking lot.

So that’s why Taekwoon’s car had looked _less_ in the real world— it had been— shifting into the Netherworld all along.

Sanghyuk placed a hand on the door handle, and it felt solid, pressing against his skin. He got in immediately, and wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel. He turned the keys in the ignition, and the engine clattered loudly before it let out a weird sound— but it kept going, and that’s all Sanghyuk needed.

He left the black temple behind him, and tried not to focus on the looming darkness of the void forest on each side of the winding road.

When Sanghyuk glanced in the rearview mirror one last time, he saw that the top of the pagoda wasn’t exactly black anymore— there were outlines of support beams and roof tiles beginning to appear inside the void.

He had to hurry before the pagoda, and with it, his friends were shifted into the Netherworld.

Maybe the Netherworld was just the negative of the mortal world. Like positive and negative embossing on a piece of paper, the shape was visible on both sides, but in a different way.

 

He went to Taekwoon’s— _their_ apartment first. When he asked himself the question where to start his search, their home was the default answer.

The building was completely dark, but Sanghyuk didn’t have time to stop and wonder what would happen if he touched the emptiness that was there instead of the real thing. He knew from memory where the entrance was.

He was just about to round the building to reach the entrance when something tackled him to the ground with a muffled screech that grated at his ears— how could he forget.

The Netherworld was supposed to be crawling with monsters. Them entering the real world was the reason Taekwoon had a job— the reason Taekwoon was in this city at all.

The reason Sanghyuk and Taekwoon met in the first place.

The thing— a _crawler_ , that’s how Taekwoon called them for the lack of common name. Every hunter had a different name for them, but all did the same thing to them— disposed them temporarily. Sent the crawlers back into the Netherworld.

How was Sanghyuk supposed to dispose this crawler if they were in the Netherworld already? Where would he send it so it wouldn’t get in his way?

To the real world?

The crawler hissed in Sanghyuk’s face as they wrestled on the ground until he gained the upper hand and managed to bash its head with his feet. In that moment, the crawler appeared strangely too human, before it suddenly disintegrated into something that looked like black smoke— the area around it gained features and lines as soon as the smoke touched it.

Energy couldn’t be destroyed— energy that was the crawler, that was Sanghyuk, that was everything in the world— it could only be transformed into something else.

The crawler didn’t disappear with Sanghyuk bashing its head— it turned into something else that sped up the process of the real world shifting into the Netherworld.

Sanghyuk hoped he didn’t have to run in with more crawlers than necessary— he didn’t want to be the reason the city would be destroyed while trying to save it.

Inside the apartment building, he couldn’t see anything, not even with his left eye, and his memory of the design of the hallways and the staircases were faulty, but he managed to find the stairs, and with much stumbling and holding onto the invisible railing, he hurried up the top floor until his legs grew tired.

Once he landed on the twelfth floor, he turned left on the corridor, and letting his hand slip against the wall, he walked to the end cautiously, until he felt another dip in the wall— their door.

The apartment was almost fully visible, and one corner in their bedroom looked like the real thing.

Taekwoon’s scent lingered in the air, and Sanghyuk had to grab onto the wall when realization struck him— Taekwoon had been there, in the Netherworld version of their bedroom— just the night before, when Sanghyuk almost choked himself.

It had been Taekwoon— and the Old God.

Sanghyuk slipped down the wall, and curled up in the corner, sobbing loudly. Powerful trembles rocked through his body, and he didn’t know what to do.

At that time, Sanghyuk had been so scared that he couldn’t focus on Taekwoon but— how desperate Taekwoon must have been? To be controlled by an entity he couldn’t tell stop, having to watch as he choked Sanghyuk with his own hands, helplessly. How scared Taekwoon must have been then? To be in another world, in the unknown, and even though his home was a hair’s breadth away, he couldn’t— he couldn’t escape.

Where had Taekwoon gone?

Where would he be if not home?

 

Sanghyuk checked every place he thought Taekwoon would go to, and he saw traces he thought were Taekwoon’s— small areas dotted the city where crawlers had been ‘killed’. Was it Taekwoon’s doing?

Were the anomalies in the city Taekwoon’s trail in the Netherworld?

It felt like playing _hot or cold_ , but without anyone telling Sanghyuk if he was nearing his destination or getting farther away from it. The clearer he saw objects, the _hotter_ it was.

The store where Sanghyuk used to work had been almost fully shifted, the same with parts of the building of the university Sanghyuk used to have most of his lectures at.

Taekwoon had been searching for Sanghyuk in the Netherworld, but now, he was nowhere to be found.

The more places Sanghyuk visited, the more desperate he grew. He knew he was running out of time, and Hakyeon’s power had its limits as well, but he just didn’t have any idea where else Taekwoon might have gone to. The city was gigantic, and it was just impossible to check every nook and corner— if Taekwoon was even in the city’s perimeters at all.

Sanghyuk tried to calm his racing heart after running away from a crawler, safely back in the jeep. He breathed deeply, and then exhaled. Inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled, but his panic refused to subside.

As a last resort, he went to the place they first met, fearing the outcome of his little trip— a nondescript alley where a crawler had attacked Sanghyuk in the real world one night. He didn’t remember why he had been in that area— he had been just wandering aimlessly after a series of events that had left him feeling unable to get back up.

At first he had thought it was a criminal, trying to rob him or kill him when Sanghyuk was yanked into the darkness of the alley, but as he had struggled in the hold, he had realized that it wasn’t even a human.

Before Sanghyuk could have even begin to understand what was actually happening, Taekwoon had swooped in, ducking into the alley with purpose, and saved Sanghyuk.

After that— Sanghyuk didn’t really remember how the two of them began to meet more often until the memory of the attack distorted into a horrible nightmare, and Taekwoon’s smile was blinding every time Sanghyuk had managed to make the man laugh with a lame joke. Before he knew it, they began dating, and then— the rest was history.

The alley was empty.

Visible, but empty.

Sanghyuk screamed.

 

He screamed Taekwoon’s name until his throat became hoarse.

 

The sun peeked out from behind the impenetrable grey clouds— in the far distance, and for a moment, but it flooded the Netherworld with such brightness that even with his eyes closed, Sanghyuk was blinded by it.

By the time Sanghyuk got back to the jeep, the clouds have taken over, and everything turned even darker, but he remembered the location of the sun on the sky. He took to the streets and followed it, pressing his feet on the gas restlessly.

He passed the skyscrapers and the brick buildings. He passed the lower class residential area and the industrial area that neighbored the city. On the very outskirts there was a poor suburban area Sanghyuk had never been to, and though the sky was covered by the rolling clouds, everything was brighter than anywhere else in the Netherworld.

He could see small, crumbling homes on each side of the cracked road, yards overgrown with weed, doors and windows boarded up and walls painted over with graffiti. It was a place of suffering, and the reality of many unfortunate people.

One home stood out for Sanghyuk for some reason, and on a sudden whim, he pulled over to the curb in front of it, and parked the jeep.

The streets were empty, no sight of crawlers. If he looked closer, he could barely see any residue darkness in nooks and corners here and there, but this place looked as if dawn had arrived instead of the night that dominated the other parts of the Netherworld.

Sanghyuk stepped on the driveway and neared the rusty fence, crushed gate hanging off silently. He pushed it in cautiously, and somewhere in the distance he heard creaking.

The front door was boarded up, and the backyard was full of junk and weed. There was a rusty swing in one corner, completely frozen. The skeleton of a dried out tree stood on the other side, wooden planks and boards nailed to one of the thickest branch.

The back porch groaned under Sanghyuk’s weight, but the backdoor was open.

Inside the home, it was a complete mess. Some walls were missing, and the half of the furniture that hadn’t been stolen was destroyed beyond functionality. There was not one shelf, armchair or table that was in one piece. Wallpaper were stained and torn off, and the lights were barely hanging onto the ceiling. Glass shards and trash cluttered the floor, and Sanghyuk had to avoid them with his bare feet.

When he was just about to question why this house felt so significant, Sanghyuk noticed a picture frame still standing on a bookshelf that barely held itself together.

Sanghyuk stepped around a torn couch, and leaned close to the frame, cleaning the dust off the glass.

On the picture were four people— a full family. Two of them were standing, probably the parents, but Sanghyuk wasn’t sure because their faces were scratched out. In front of them sat a teenager girl, and an even younger boy.

The boy looked strangely familiar to Sanghyuk.

His eyes—

It was Taekwoon.

The boy’s eyes were the same, sharp, but still full of childish innocence and cheerfulness that was gone from the Taekwoon Sanghyuk knew. If anything, the girl on the photo looked more like adult-Taekwoon than his younger self.

He’d never mentioned if he had a sister— though Sanghyuk had never really asked about his family. Back when they were only existing in the beginnings of their budding relationship, burning passion, and they were getting to know each other, it had been mainly Sanghyuk who shared his background.

Sanghyuk knew Taekwoon had a family— _“I guess my parents are alive, but I don’t know where they live, nor do I care. When I turned eighteen, they were done playing their role, and so was I. I haven’t seen them since”_ – he would say, and Sanghyuk had never pried further because he knew Taekwoon didn’t want to talk about it.

There was no use getting angry at Taekwoon for keeping things to himself.

Sanghyuk just wondered if everything that Taekwoon had fed him was the truth, or just another series of lies.

And if this was his childhood home, then what had happened?

The scratched out faces of the parents wasn’t what worried Sanghyuk the most— it was the absence of Taekwoon’s sister.

There wasn’t much else to look at in the house, and there wasn’t a second floor either, so Sanghyuk saw everything that the home had to offer. Except for a closed door that led somewhere between two rooms.

Sanghyuk opened the door slowly, and stared into the choking darkness that consumed the stairs down to a basement level.

Something was different about this darkness— it wasn’t the void that outlined the imprints of objects that were still in the real world, but something— _different_.

Sanghyuk’s core objected to going closer, and he felt like he was about to crawl out of his skin. The feeling was so, so unpleasant that he was about to turn around even with the possibility of finally finding Taekwoon down there, but then he heard it—

He heard a soft whimper coming from the darkness, and it could have been a crawler for all he knew, but crawlers didn’t sound anything like that.

Sanghyuk threw himself into the darkness, steeling himself against the onslaught, and something slammed into him as he stumbled down the wooden stairs. After so much brightness, he wished he could see, but it was as if he had gone completely blind.

“Taekwoon,” Sanghyuk whispered, unable to produce a sound louder than that.

A thud.

Silence.

And then—

“Sanghyuk?”

It was Taekwoon.

A sob escaped Sanghyuk’s throat, and he stepped towards the source of the sound.

“I’m here,” he said quietly. “I’m here, Taekwoon, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” he chanted, voice breaking.

“Oh god, Sanghyuk—” Taekwoon began, and then suddenly he grew silent. “No,” he said. “No, this can’t be real—”

“It’s real, I’m real,” Sanghyuk tried, while he flailed his arms in the air. Taekwoon was so, so close to him, yet he still couldn’t find him.

“No,” Taekwoon objected, and Sanghyuk heard him take a deep breath. “Stop playing with my head!” he shouted, and Sanghyuk winced as Taekwoon’s voice exploded into the silence. “He can’t be here!”

“I’m here!” Sanghyuk yelled back. “I came here to bring you back home!”

“No!” Taekwoon screamed, hysteria clawing at his voice, and he kept screaming until Sanghyuk was forced to kneel down, clapping his hands over his ears.

But Taekwoon’s voice did something, because the wire inside a light bulb above them turned orange, and then the whole bulb lit up brightly, flooding the basement with light for two seconds until the glass shattered suddenly.

Sanghyuk lurched towards the direction he noticed Taekwoon, and when his knees hit the side of a bath tub, he toppled inside, falling on top of a body— the screaming ended in a choked yelp, and Sanghyuk quickly shifted around until he knew that his head was resting on a shoulder.

“S-Sanghyuk?” Taekwoon stammered, voice hoarse.

Sanghyuk felt a shaking hand touch his back, and Sanghyuk slipped his arms around Taekwoon as much as the walls of the tub let him.

“I’m here,” he whispered, and tightened his hold on Taekwoon until they were crushing each other in their embrace.

Taekwoon let out a whimpering sob, and brought a hand to the back of Sanghyuk’s head. His hands jumped around Sanghyuk’s whole body, groping him with skittering fingers as if he was trying to make sure that Sanghyuk was indeed there.

“My senses have betrayed me so many times,” Taekwoon choked out, “you’ve come to rescue me— you’ve come down those stairs so many times—”

“This time, it’s real, I promise,” Sanghyuk reassured him as he pressed his lips to the side of Taekwoon’s neck. He felt a rapid pulse there, and the warmth of Taekwoon’s skin felt almost enlightening.

He couldn’t believe that he’d finally found Taekwoon.

“How— how did you get here?” Taekwoon asked quietly, threading his fingers through Sanghyuk’s hair, and began to massage his scalp almost absentmindedly. He could feel Taekwoon’s cheek resting on the top of his head, and he yearned to finally see Taekwoon after so many days of horror.

“I’ll explain it later,” Sanghyuk sighed. “We need to get out of here— back to the real world. I don’t know how long I can remain here.”

“Get back…” Taekwoon echoed. “But how?”

Sanghyuk shook his head. “I don’t know.”

If Sanghyuk wanted to be honest with himself, he was perfectly fine right now— he’d found Taekwoon, and he could embrace the other with his arms once more. He didn’t care about the city, and the people living there, because the city was an ungrateful place of filth that didn’t deserve Taekwoon’s services— and Sanghyuk just wanted some rest.

He was so exhausted, he could easily fall asleep.

“Hey,” Taekwoon murmured softly, and his voice reverberated through his chest, into Sanghyuk’s chest as they breathed against each other.

“Yes?” Sanghyuk mumbled.

“How did you enter the Netherworld?” Taekwoon asked, and then quickly added: “Maybe we can leave the same way you arrived.”

Sanghyuk jerked his head up.

“We— we—” he started, thinking hard, and then he remembered the words spoken to him. “Water is the best conduit.”

“Water?” He sounded surprised, but after Sanghyuk affirmative nod, Taekwoon hummed. “Water…” he trailed off.

“Taekwoon?” Sanghyuk questioned gently, slipping a hand over his shoulder to squeeze it in reassurance.

“I— I know where to find water.”

 

Taekwoon looked worse for wear once they exited the basement, but nothing was amiss and different on his exterior, except for the dark circles under his eyes and his cheekbones a little bit sharper. When he noticed what Sanghyuk was wearing, a smile sat out onto his lips which then quickly turned into a grin, followed by a hearty laugh.

“What?” Sanghyuk asked in amused embarrassment, and pulled Taekwoon back into another hug in the middle of Taekwoon’s destroyed childhood home.

“I didn’t know you became a monk just to save me,” Taekwoon chuckled, and Sanghyuk’s chest filled up— his heart was about to burst with happiness.

He missed this— oh god, he missed Taekwoon so much.

He would never let Taekwoon go after this.

“I sacrificed a lot to save you,” Sanghyuk grinned, but upon his words, Taekwoon’s face grew serious. The smile faltered off Sanghyuk’s mouth as well.

Taekwoon looked slightly up at him, and his mouth opened as his eyes widened in realization.

“Your eye,” he whispered, and lifted a hand up between them to place it on Sanghyuk’s left cheek, fingers softly prodding around his eye. “It’s— ruined… What happened to it?” he mumbled, arching his eyebrows in a heartbreaking way.

“I— to _see_ you,” Sanghyuk sighed, and wrapped his fingers around Taekwoon’s hand, brought it down to his mouth, and pressed his lips on Taekwoon’s knuckles, kissing them one by one. “We need to go. Where is the water?”

 

It was a large mining lake fenced off on the empty field behind Taekwoon’s house. Huge mounds of mined out gravel and grassy soil bracketed the water from almost all sides, and there was a slightly sandy beach on one side that seemed to dip into the lake in a less steep angle. Very few trees dotted the area, but bushes were abundant, and reed all around the lake shore except for the beach part.

Taekwoon came to a sudden halt at the edge where the gravel-y soil ended and the sand started.

“What’s wrong?” Sanghyuk asked, drawing his eyebrows together, and walked back to Taekwoon to take his hands into his own.

The surface of the lake was completely black, but ripples glinted faintly on it.

“I… used to come here a lot,” Taekwoon exhaled, and glanced at the water behind Sanghyuk. When he looked back, Sanghyuk tipped his head to the side in confusion— he could see fear in Taekwoon’s eyes, and he didn’t understand what made the other so scared.

“Did something happen?” Sanghyuk prompted, and after chewing on his lip for a long moment, Taekwoon nodded jerkily.

“I never told you, but I— had a sister,” he confessed, shutting his eyes tightly.

“I know,” Sanghyuk mumbled. “I saw the photo.”

Taekwoon swallowed. “She died. Drowned— in this lake. Her legs cramped and I was too small to help her, so I ran back home—”

“It’s okay,” Sanghyuk cut in, feeling as Taekwoon’s body was shaking as he recounted his story. “You don’t have to—

“But my parents, my fucking junkie parents—” Taekwoon seethed, continuing without stopping to listen to Sanghyuk, “they were high like usual, and they didn’t give a shit, and nobody else bothered in this fucking neighborhood. By the time I made it back to the lake, my sister was dead.”

Sanghyuk cupped Taekwoon’s face.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said.

“I could’ve saved her,” Taekwoon shook his head, his lips trembling. “She had such a life ahead of her— she was at the top of her class and she had gotten into a scholarship program, and—”

“If you want to blame someone for her death, blame your parents,” Sanghyuk offered. He didn’t really know how else he was supposed to convince Taekwoon that his sister’s death wasn’t his fault. He’d lived almost all his life blaming himself for the loss, there was no chance for Sanghyuk to change his mind so suddenly.

“I did,” Taekwoon nodded curtly, and stepped out of Sanghyuk’s embrace. The muscles on Taekwoon’s jaw flexed. “That’s why I killed them.”

Sanghyuk widened his eyes, and Taekwoon took another step backwards.

“I killed my parents, and with Hakyeon’s help, I buried them at a nearby refuse site into the trash where they belonged…” he trailed off as he whispered, staring in front of himself, and then he slowly sank to the ground. Sanghyuk followed him, crouching down in front of him.

“You revenged your sister’s death,” Sanghyuk said. “Then why do you still blame yourself?”

“Because I’m a murderer,” Taekwoon breathed. “Why did you come here to save me?”

Sanghyuk snapped his mouth closed, stunned into silence at Taekwoon’s question.

“Why did you give up your eye for me?”

“You’re not a murderer to me,” Sanghyuk’s nostrils flared as he breathed through his nose angrily. “I saved you because I love you,” he said loudly, almost yelling. He grabbed Taekwoon’s wrist. “I saved you because, even though unknowingly, you pulled me up when I felt like I couldn’t continue— and you gave me a whole new world to live in.”

Taekwoon’s whole face trembled with a myriad of emotions that Sanghyuk couldn’t pick apart. His heart was racing, squeezing at the sight of Taekwoon questioning himself— had Taekwoon always wondered why Sanghyuk didn’t leave him when in truth he’d killed people even though Sanghyuk didn’t know about it? Had he always felt this insecure in their relationship?

“Taekwoon,” Sanghyuk whispered, kneeling closer to Taekwoon. “I love you, Taekwoon, I love you so much— but we need to get out of here. I don’t know how long until Hakyeon can protect me.”

Taekwoon swallowed, and after a moment of staring deeply into Sanghyuk’s unwavering eyes, he nodded, steeling himself with a deep exhale.

Sanghyuk pulled Taekwoon up by his arm, and they didn’t release each other’s hands as they slowly walked into the dark lake, Sanghyuk’s robes floating around him like orange bubbles on the surface of the water.

“There’s an underwater mound in the middle,” Taekwoon tipped his chin in the direction as they walked until they could, and then began to float when the depth of the lake surpassed their height. “What are we supposed to do?”

“I have no idea,” Sanghyuk said as he blew out through his mouth, water lapping at his lips as he swam after Taekwoon.

“What did you do right before you came here?” Taekwoon asked, and stopped. He lifted out of the water a bit, and Sanghyuk found the top of the mound of gravel that Taekwoon was trying to stand on. His naked feet slipped on the polished rocks, irked by the way the moss on them felt on his feet.

“Jaehwan stabbed me in the eye with a knife,” Sanghyuk deadpanned, earning a snort from Taekwoon. “Do you remember what happened to you before you came here?”

“No,” Taekwoon shook his head once. “I was visiting my sister’s grave when— I don’t know, I started to feel dizzy, and then I guess I blacked out…”

Sanghyuk sighed deeply as he looked up at the sky.

The clouds seemed to hang low, almost as if they were right above their heads. They felt menacing.

After finding Taekwoon mostly unharmed, Sanghyuk felt almost invincible. With Taekwoon at his side, he had conquered the Netherworld, but he had to remind himself that they were not out of the danger yet.

Somehow, they had to go back, and hope that with Taekwoon gone, the Old God wouldn’t be able to enter their world as freely anymore.

“I… have an idea,” Sanghyuk said slowly. “Do you trust me?” A part of him wanted Taekwoon to say no— but when Taekwoon nodded, Sanghyuk’s heart plummeted into his stomach.

“I trust you,” Taekwoon whispered.

“Take a deep breath and close your eyes,” Sanghyuk instructed softly, and before Taekwoon could do as told, Sanghyuk quickly kissed him—

He hoped it wasn’t the last time.

He wasn’t ready to lose Taekwoon again, but he had no other idea how to get out of the Netherworld.

Taekwoon inhaled, his chest expanding, and closed his eyes.

Sanghyuk placed a hand on his back, and pressed the other hand on Taekwoon’s chest, slowly bending him backwards into the water. The arm around Taekwoon slipped away, and when his head dipped below the water, his eyes snapped open.

Sanghyuk wrapped his hands around Taekwoon’s neck and squeezed.

Taekwoon kicked out his legs, but after a long moment, he calmed down, and closed his eyes again, his hands going slack around Sanghyuk’s wrists. Bubbles rose from his nose.

After a few moments that felt like an eternity, though, Taekwoon’s body began to react to the lack of oxygen – or whatever they were inhaling in the Netherworld – and his grasp on Sanghyuk’s wrists tightened, sinking his nails into Sanghyuk’s skin. He began to kick, and jerk his body, writhing in Sanghyuk’s grasp until he could.

And then Taekwoon went still.

 

Nothing happened.

Taekwoon’s body floated up to the surface as Sanghyuk released him.

Sanghyuk’s heart was beating out of his ribcage, desperately wishing for something— something to happen.

But nothing happened.

Oh god—

Just after he got back Taekwoon—

He— he just killed—

He just killed Taekwoon.

Realization dawned on Sanghyuk slowly, creeping up his back as it took the oxygen out of his lungs, and no matter how fast he tried to breathe, he felt like he was being suffocated.

He grabbed Taekwoon’s shoulders and tugged at them, shaking Taekwoon’s body as he screamed.

This couldn’t happen. This was not how it was supposed to go— Taekwoon was supposed to turn into black smoke like those crawlers had done, and after Sanghyuk did the same thing to himself, he was supposed to wake up in the real world with Taekwoon waiting for him on the other side.

But instead, Taekwoon’s body had to be dragged out of the lake onto the shore, and even as Sanghyuk pressed onto his chest rhythmically, blowing into Taekwoon’s mouth, Taekwoon didn’t wake up.

Was this the end?

Was this their end?

Sanghyuk had gone through hell to get here, and this is how it all ended? It wasn’t the Old God, but Sanghyuk himself who killed Taekwoon?

Was this where Sanghyuk would meet his end as well?

He’d failed everyone— Wonshik, Hakyeon, Hongbin, Jaehwan, the monks, even that fucking city, he’d failed them all.

Sanghyuk laid his head on Taekwoon’s still chest, and heaved, tears refusing to fall from his eyes. He felt dry, and empty. A part of him, the part that kept his tears back, refused to believe that Taekwoon was dead.

He might have been already back in the mortal world, awake, well, waiting for Sanghyuk to arrive next to him— but Sanghyuk knew that it was a lie.

Taekwoon’s body was still there, still visible— if it was here in the Netherworld, then it couldn’t be in the real world— that’s not how the nature of everything worked, that’s not how the balance worked. Back when they had thought that Taekwoon was gone without a trace, it wasn’t true— they just couldn’t see Taekwoon’s trail until it was too late.

The balance worked, and not even an Old God could cheat it.

Was this the balance’s doing— or was it the Old God reaching for Taekwoon’s throat?

The water rippled, and a small tide began to wash over the beach, lapping at Sanghyuk’s feet. He didn’t care— he couldn’t care less what happened in the Netherworld anymore.

It could tear him apart for all he cared. There was no reason to keep resisting it.

Maybe he would meet Taekwoon in some other form.

The water splashed furiously, loudly, as if someone was walking in it.

When Sanghyuk glanced up, the shout died on his lips.

There was a shape crawling out of the water, standing almost upright— it walked with a limp, and its head kept jerking to the side. It walked like a human would never be able to walk.

As the crawler that somehow didn’t really look like the other crawlers Sanghyuk had seen before, neared the beach, Sanghyuk began to notice more features on the figure.

Grey, bloated skin covered its slimy body, and long black hair covered half of its face— its eyes were gone, black holes, and its mouth was purple, cracked.

It looked like someone who’d drowned.

The crawler stopped a few meters from Sanghyuk.

It was Taekwoon’s sister.

 

Sanghyuk watched as Taekwoon’s sister grabbed Taekwoon’s ankles and began to drag the body back into the lake. He sat at the shore, baffled, and he couldn’t move a muscle as he stared at their receding size.

The drowned girl circled around herself a few times, and then stopped. She looked straight at Sanghyuk, and reached towards him with her hand, calling for him quietly.

Something told him not to go— but there was nothing else to do. He stood up, and dashed into the lake until he was swimming towards Taekwoon’s sister standing right on the underwater mound in the middle.

His skin crawled as he stepped up to the girl, her appearance worse than any of Sanghyuk’s nightmares or the crawlers. A shiver skittered though him when Taekwoon’s sister placed her hands on his shoulder, and pushed him underwater.

Sanghyuk let her, and even as his lungs began to burn with the need to breathe, he tried not to flail too hard. He wrapped his hands around her fragile wrists, more for support than with the intention of tearing them off.

He’d never tried drowning himself— it felt awful.

He was cold, and the urge to breathe had overtaken his rational thinking. Adrenaline surged through his heart, spreading in his whole body, and it was so loud in his ears. He kept staring at the girl’s distorted face until the water above him became too disturbed and his sight began to blur, darkening at the edges of his vision.

When he couldn’t keep his mouth closed anymore, he just let it happen— water filled his lungs without stopping, and then— he couldn’t see anything anymore.

He couldn’t feel.

The last thing he could sense was an unintelligible whisper inside his head.

 

It was serene, and— bright. Sanghyuk felt peaceful.

He was lying underneath the _seonang namu,_ on his side, curled up. Grass tickled his face lazily.

Taekwoon was in front of him, also lying on the ground. He mirrored Sanghyuk’s position.

Sanghyuk heard murmurs behind his back, a deep voice that was so familiar, the name was on the tip of his tongue.

The sun peeked at them between the colorful leaves of the tree, and Taekwoon’s face glowed in the light.

“Thank you,” the deep voice whispered, and in the breeze, the leaves whispered back an answer.

Sanghyuk turned his head towards the sky, and the sun blinded him.

 

There was no abyss, and Sanghyuk didn’t stare into it.

 

There was an Old God.

There wasn’t an Old God.

 

The living room was alive with music and chattering. Something clattered in the kitchen adjacent to it, and somebody shouted a loud _sorry!_

“You’ll be sorry if it was my favorite kitchen set!” Hongbin shouted back before Jaehwan grabbed a handful of tea biscuits and shoved them into Hongbin’s open mouth to shut him up. Hakyeon’s bellowing laugh filled the house.

A movie was playing in the TV in the background, its sound dying underneath all the noise.

A weight pressed down on Sanghyuk’s thighs.

Sanghyuk opened his eyes, and squinted as he accidentally stared straight into the white of the lamp above his head. The patch over his left eye dug into his cheek. He lifted his head off the back of the couch where he was resting it, and glanced down.

Three eyes blinked up at him— two fully, while the other just squinted at him.

“Sleepy?” Wonshik asked softly, with a fond smile. Sanghyuk shook his head.

“Just rested my eye,” he said, “gotta take better care of it now that I only have one,” he grinned down at Wonshik, and the man let out a deep chuckle that Sanghyuk could feel vibrate into his thigh muscles.

Sometimes it still felt weird to see through Wonshik’s third eye— when he could open it at all anyway. They’d been getting there slowly though, with Hongbin’s guidance and knowledge.

Sanghyuk leaned forward, careful not to squeeze Wonshik’s head between his chest and legs, and grabbed a well-worn jar from the coffee table. He twisted the lid off, and scooped a small amount of balm with his index finger. Wonshik took the jar and the lid from him without a word.

He dabbed the balm around the closed eyelids on Wonshik’s forehead, just like Hongbin had showed him, and then he slowly nudged the eyelids open with as much care as he could. He’d hurt Wonshik so much, he would never forgive himself for causing more pain for the other— even if it was necessary.

Sanghyuk stared into his own eye, and faintly, in the darkness of his left eye, he could see his own face.

“It’s healing well,” he murmured, and his gaze flickered to Wonshik’s parted lips. He let his hand slide down the side of Wonshik’s cheek, until his knuckles were so close to Wonshik’s mouth. Before Sanghyuk could retract his arm, Wonshik turned his head, and pressed a kiss to the back of Sanghyuk’s hand.

Sanghyuk’s heart skipped a beat.

Maybe it was the connection between them that had been established when they began to share their sight— maybe it had been there earlier, when Sanghyuk went to Wonshik instead of Hakyeon to ask for help.

One thing Sanghyuk knew for sure— when he first opened his good eye after he’d been pulled out of the lake, the first thing he saw was Wonshik’s panicked face, his silver hair sticking to his wet face.

“Move,” Taekwoon grunted, and nudged Wonshik’s legs off the couch with his socked feet, munching on a slice of pizza that he was just about to finish. Wonshik smiled up at Sanghyuk before he pushed himself up, wedging himself between Taekwoon and Sanghyuk.

Taekwoon reached over Wonshik, and waved the crust of the pizza in front of Sanghyuk’s face.

“You’re a heathen, the crust is the best part,” Sanghyuk rolled his eyes with a dramatic sigh, and took the food from the other, finishing it in two big bites. Taekwoon cleaned off his fingers, patting them down on his pants, and left a hand to rest on his leg.

Sanghyuk glanced to the side— Taekwoon slowly slipped his hand over Wonshik’s thigh, and their fingers grazed each other feather lightly, in the most innocent way two men could, and Sanghyuk could swear he felt a blush creep up to his cheeks.

His heart swelled at the sight of Taekwoon and Wonshik— something new was budding between the three of them, and Sanghyuk couldn’t wait to see the result. If the way Taekwoon let himself glance at Wonshik was any proof, then there would be nothing else Sanghyuk wanted from this life.

“Here comes the cake!” Hakyeon announced from somewhere in the kitchen, and Jaehwan jumped up, pulling his arm from behind Hongbin’s head, and after a moment, the lights went out.

Wonshik laced his fingers through Sanghyuk’s, and they squeezed their hands together.

The darkness couldn’t harm them anymore.

The balance had been restored— more or less. Parts were missing from both Taekwoon and Sanghyuk, but Wonshik was there to fill in the void.

Soft orange glowed through the living room of Jaehwan and Hongbin's home, and Hakyeon stepped up to the coffee table, softly humming to himself as he set a large cake down carefully. The candle flame cast dancing shadows on everyone’s face, and their eyes glinted brightly as they looked into the light.


End file.
